by Hazel Hunter
“What did you do to me?” she shrieked, stumbling away from him and staring in horror at the water. “You pulled me through the stream to here? How?”
“I’m no’ mortal,” he said with a steely grin.
Neac and his men surfaced and strode from the water.
New fear danced in her eyes. “You’ll no’ eat me alive, Evander. Snap my neck and be done with it.”
“That will wait a wee bit. Here’s what you wanted to find for those blood-sucking leeches.” Evander grabbed her and gave her a shove toward the steps leading to the underground vaults. “Do you ken where you are? Behold, the Black Cuillin mountains of Skye. They’ve kept our castle safe for more than a thousand years.”
She wouldn’t look at the stronghold until Evander pulled her head back.
“I dinnae care about where ’tis,” she said. “I never did. Fack you and your castle.”
“Then why were you forever nagging me to bring you home with me? So we could be together, you said. Because you missed me so much after I left you.” He had to let go of her or rip the hair from her head. “How well you played your bed games. When you weren’t spreading your legs for the Romans.”
“Aye, I’ve facked the undead,” Fiona said and smirked. “Are you feeling jealous, my lord and master? Did you think of me as yours alone, a little mortal doll for you to stroke and cuddle and make you feel adored? Has anyone but me ever really wanted you, Evander? I’m thinking no’.”
He was going to kill her, right here and now, in the same place where the Romans had slit his throat. A more fitting place to spill her traitorous blood he could not imagine.
“Do it,” she told him through her teeth. “End me and my miserable life.”
Neac caught his hand up as he reached for his dagger. “No’ yet, lad. You’ll have to tell the laird about her, and what she’s done.”
Aye, and how Lachlan would gloat over his stupidity. “I will,” he told the chieftain, “as soon as I learn what she’s told the legion.”
Neac’s gaze shifted to Fiona’s sullen face. “You’ll learn naught if you beat her to death, Evander, which I think you will the moment you’re alone with her. Allow me–”
“No,” he said through clenched teeth. He felt like an old pot riddled with crazing and about to shatter. In a lower voice he said, “This was my doing, Neac. It must be me.”
“As you say, then.” The chieftain clapped a hand on his shoulder before he turned and called to his men, “Whiskey and ale for the lot of you. Where’s Mistress Talley? I’ve a powerful hankering for her honey and nut cakes.”
Evander lit a torch before he took Fiona down the steps that split off in one direction toward the hot cistern, and in the other to the vaults. In the first years after the awakening the clan had used the big, empty storage rooms as a dungeon for raiders, and villagers who had committed crimes against their neighbors. Lachlan had outfitted the rooms with all manner of torture equipment, claiming the sight of it was enough to scare the truth out of their prisoners.
Fiona seemed blind to the cobwebs that draped the corners over the stretching racks and hanging rows of iron Brank’s bridle masks. He touched the whipping post, and traced some old, dark stains streaking the wood—likely chicken blood painted on it to make it seem realistic. To Evander’s knowledge not a single prisoner had ever been harmed since the building of the castle. His mistress would be the first when he beat her to death.
He took down one of the iron masks, and toyed with the spiked flap meant to be inserted in the mouth, so the tongue and palette would be pierced every time the condemned spoke.
“Mayhap you should wear this while we speak. It may remind you to be truthful.”
“Takes a brave lad to torture a helpless wench unable to defend herself,” she countered. “You’re more like the undead than you think.”
“Do you want to die?” he demanded hotly.
“I dinnae want to live anymore, that’s for certain.” Her shoulders sagged as he approached her. “Just go on and break my neck. I’ve earned that much.”
“Earned?” He threw the mask across the room, where it struck a Catherine wheel and clattered to the ground. “You hoored yourself for the undead, you treacherous vulture.”
She nodded, and slowly looked around the chamber to inspect the devices, as if she were in a garden admiring flowers.
The only question Evander truly wanted answered could be asked with one word. “Why?”
“’Twas a better prospect than ending as one of their blood thralls. I’d have lasted no more than a week after they murdered my Da and took me.”
Evander peered at her. “Took you?”
“I was but a girl the night they came. Came straight inside while we slept, and killed my da, and carried me off.” She fell silent for a moment, and then jerked her shoulders. “One of them took me back to the cottage. I kept Da dead in my house for a week before I called for the grave diggers. By then he’d swelled and blackened enough to make them think he’d died of plague, instead of being drained by the undead.” She smiled at him. “That’s what Quintus told me to do when he freed me. He’s clever, that one.”
“The legion released you,” he said and uttered a sour laugh. “Of course they did. Did they bring you posies, and walk you to church every Sabbath as well?”
Fiona leaned back against a wall to watch him. “You McDonnels have no understanding of what the undead do to the mortals they take. They bind us, and drag us down into their tunnels, and pen us like animals. We were not fed or given water. Some of the others scratch and bite at the new ones, hoping the smell of our blood will save them from being chosen.”
Despite his anger, his stomach churned to imagine a girl being forced to endure such horrors. “Chosen for what?”
“Attention. The Romans come every night to choose a thrall to feed on, and fack, and do whatever else they wish.” She met his gaze. “I was a maiden when they took me, so they drew lots over who would have me the first time. Quintus Seneca chose me the second. He didn’t fack me while he drank. Of course I was still bleeding from what Marius did. Would you like to hear that? What a full grown man does to a virgin?”
Evander stared at her. “And you were taking me to them, as you did the druids? ’Tis what you wished for me?”
Her laughter echoed around them. “No, you blind bastart. Dinnae you see? I kept the cart packed and ready so I could flee to England when I had the chance of it. They’d never have followed me all that way. I’m no’ so important to them. They’d just teach another thrall how to take my place.” She hung her head. “I’m a hoor, aye, but I’m a good weaver. I would have earned the coin to keep us. We’d have been safe.”
“We?” he said, surprised at how hard the word was to say.
She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “But I had to tell you what I’d done. I couldnae have it ‘tween us.” She grimaced. “And then your friends showed up.”
“You meant to take me with you,” he said, as something flickered deep in his chest.
Tears welled up into her eyes. “The tribune told me I was to kill you. Quintus said I must cut off your manhood, and bring it back to them as proof.” She started to say something else, and then shook her head. “Please, Evander. I’m so tired now, and I’ve naught more to tell. If you ever felt anything for me, make it quick.”
He remembered the moment she took the knife from his neck.
“Why couldn’t you kill me?” he made himself ask, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Because it would be like ending myself.” She inhaled a sob. “Because I’m in love with you.” She covered her face with her hands.
Like thin loch ice under a careless boot, something inside him cracked. He saw now how the legion and the clan had made them enemies. He could no more beat her to death than she could have ended and mutilated him. She was not the woman he’d known. But he was not the man she thought him.
He watched her cry into her hands, the great sobs w
racking her. For months he had wanted to bring her to Dun Aran. Now he couldn’t put the place far enough behind.
Maybe together they could find a way.
Slowly, he gathered her into his arms.
“I’m sorry for the things I said to you,” she sobbed and buried her face against his neck. “I didnae mean them. But you cannae keep me here, Evander. Your clan will learn what I am, and what I’ve done. Quintus will see to that.”
“Lass,” he murmured, tilting her face up so he could see her wet eyes. “We will go, and make a life where no one shall find us. ’Tis the only way we can be together now.”
She gazed up at him, wonder in her face. “Do you mean it?”
He smiled down at her. “You have my oath.”
But almost as quickly as her face brightened, a cloud passed over. “The druids and the people of my village,” she said. “Their lives are on my head.”
Neither of them could make a fresh start with the thought of those poor souls as blood thralls—to suffer what his Fiona had.
“We must set free the druids and the villagers,” he said quietly. How he was going to do that without his clansmen would be the trick. As a thought occurred to him, he held her at arm’s distance. “Is there ever a time when they’re no’ guarded?”
“Aye.” She gripped his hands tightly. “When the undead sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
RAEN HAD TO rise several hours before dawn to see to the laird’s duties as well as his own. He didn’t mind the extra work. Dun Aran was an efficient household, and their well-trained mortal retainers labored diligently. None of the clan woke until sunrise, which was why it surprised him to see Seoc Talorc staggering across the great hall.
“Seoc, are you waking, or off to sleep?” Raen joked, and then saw the blood streaking the stable master’s face and grabbed him. The other man had a nasty gash across his pate and a broken nose, and when he eased him down onto a bench he swayed as if ready to topple. “Seoc, who beat you?”
“I would have given him the coin. He dinnae have to steal it.” He peered at Raen. “Why would my cousin run off with a mortal wench? He doesnae even like them. That and I thought Neac said she was a traitor…och, my head.”
Raen called for a night sentry to see to the injured man, and then grabbed a hammer and headed for the dungeon. Last night the Uthar chieftain had told him only that Evander had brought a mortal to the stronghold for questioning. If he’d known it was a woman, Raen would never have left the seneschal alone with her. But before he reached the stronghold he saw a dark-haired woman at the loch. Evander stood waiting in the water for her. He heaved the hammer, sending it sailing through the air between them. As it plunged into the water, both Evander and the woman recoiled from it. In those few moments, Raen surged forward to come between her and the seneschal.
“Stop there, Mistress. Evander, come out and explain yourself.”
“Fiona,” Evander called. “Dinnae move.”
“Stand aside, McDonnel,” the plump woman said and drew a dagger of Roman design. “We’re going away now. We’ll no’ trouble anyone again.”
Raen disarmed her with one blow that sent her sprawling. As he plucked her from the ground, he turned to look at Evander.
“Are you mad to be–”
The spear that rammed through his throat cut off his voice, and drove him to his knees.
Evander rushed up to seize the woman, but paused and grimaced down at Raen.
“Why did you move? I was aiming for your shoulder.” He reached for the spear, but then let his hand fall away. Instead he picked up the woman and carried her into the loch.
Raen grasped the shaft protruding from his neck, and tried to tug it out. Warm wetness poured down his chest as he fell over onto his side, as Evander and Fiona disappeared under the water. He tried to take a breath, only to choke on his own blood. He tried again, inhaling only a little, and was able to get some air in his chest.
Raen panted around the spear as the darkness lightened, and the sun rose over the water. If he was to live, he had to save himself. Painfully he crawled toward the loch, until the end of the spear collided with a stone. With the last of his strength he gripped the shaft again, but when he pulled on it something inside his neck snapped.
It was then he knew he would never see Evander or his woman again. Because as all feeling left his body from the chin down, he knew he would be dead.
As they left the stables, Lachlan tugged Kinley to his side. “You like sleeping in the hay.”
“I like that bed,” she said as they walked down to the loch. “We should have Seoc make a new mattress for your tower chamber. He knows how to make straw feel like– Raen.”
As soon as he saw the big man on the ground, Lachlan ran for him. But when he saw the spear that skewered his bodyguard’s throat, he fell to his knees beside him. Raen was barely breathing, and from the look of his body he couldn’t move. The end of the spear protruded from the back of his neck, as did a shattered bone from his spine. Since he still breathed his spine had not been entirely severed, but the laird had seen many such injuries during his long life. Removing the spear would likely finish him off.
As Kinley reached for it, Lachlan stayed her hand. “He’s done for, lass.”
Kinley glanced at the water. “Can’t we just put him in the loch to heal?”
“The spear went through his spine,” he told her, feeling sick. “It willnae heal unless we take it out, which will kill him before the waters can mend it. There’s no coming back from this.”
“But there has to be something we–”
“Kinley,” Lachlan said past the contraction in his throat. “’Tis the killing blow.”
Lachlan stared at the ghastly wound trying to think how he could make Raen more comfortable.
“Wait,” Kinley said and touched her face. “Lachlan.” She grabbed his arm. “Can you carry him and me through the loch to the oak grove where I crossed over?”
“He’s almost dead, lass. Let his final…” He stopped when he saw the light in her eyes. The grove? “Hold the spear,” he said, as he hefted Raen into a sitting position. Carefully, he drew the man up and onto his shoulder. “You think it will heal him, as it did you?”
“I don’t know,” she said taking his free hand as they waded into the water. “But we have to try.”
Lachlan carried his bodyguard into the loch, and emerged from the stream nearest the sacred grove. Kinley helped steady Raen as they hurried to the center of the ancient trees, where Lachlan carefully lowered the big man next to the stone.
Only then did he notice the mark carved on the shaft, and his blood ran cold. Evander, who could hit anything with a spear, always carved his with the same mark.
Kinley placed her hand over a winged serpent etched into the surface of the stone. The lines of it took on a green glow.
“We take out the spear,” Kinley told him. “We go through to my time, and then we come right back.” Kinley gripped the spear too. “Okay, now.”
It took almost too long to tug the weapon out of Raen’s neck, and as soon as Lachlan flung it away he heard a death rattle escape his bodyguard’s lips. Kinley snatched up both their hands, leaned close to the glowing stone, and pressed her cheek to the winged serpent. The green glow became a whirlwind of light that encircled them, shaping itself into a tunnel of curving oak boughs.
Lachlan landed hard beside Kinley and Raen, but this time the grove held no stones. A strangely-marked, bright yellow ribbon had been tied to the tree trunks to form a barrier. He heard something roar and looked up to see a huge, headless bird made of silver metal soaring over them. He turned his head to ask Kinley what it was, but saw another woman had taken her place.
She looked as if she had been torn apart and sewn back together by a shaking hand. Terrible scars covered her face, twisting her features and obliterating her beauty. The only feature he still recognized was her lips, which had somehow escaped unscathed—and made the damage done seem s
o much worse. Most of her hair had been cut away from the curving scars on her head. One of her legs stretched out so crookedly it didn’t match the other, and the bandages wound around it had partially torn, showing the damage done. Bulky white stone covered one of her arms to the shoulder. Half her body weight had melted away from her, leaving her limbs painfully thin and wasted.
He peered into her thunderstruck blue eyes, which now appeared dull and clouded. “Kinley?”
She nodded. “Now do you believe I was a soldier?”
Lachlan had not wept since he was a boy, but he paid no mind to the tears that spilled down his face.
“My sweet lass.”
“It’s okay,” she said, and gave him a lopsided smile. “This is why I didn’t want to come back. I suspected I’d revert to what I was before I crossed over to your time.” She shivered as she looked at the yellow ribbon bound around the trees. “God, they must think I was abducted or murdered, or both. I hope Dr. Stevens isn’t the prime suspect.” Her voice slurred the last words, and her eyelids fluttered.
“Kinley,” Lachlan said thickly and put his arm around her.
“It’s okay. I forgot how weak I was back then. Now. Whatever.” Her hand shook as she touched Raen’s bloodied neck with her twisted fingers. “The good news is that he still has a pulse.”
“He won’t for long,” Lachlan told her, and frowned as green light shimmered around them. “Does the grove take us back now?”
“I think so. It felt like this when I came through the first time.” She gripped Raen’s shoulder. “Hold onto me, and don’t let go. This way is a lot rougher.”
Lachlan gently took her hand, and braced himself for the second passage.
Would they return to his time, and if they did, would Kinley and Raen survive it? He should have asked her that, but they were falling through the bower of oak trees again, and tumbling through time until they fell back beside the sacred grove stone.